Whisper the Dead

by Alyxandra Harvey

  The dagger came next, slender and wickedly pointed. It sliced through his jacket, cutting through the thin shirt to the skin beneath. The cut was shallow, a mere annoyance.

  But the wolfsbane now seeping into his bloodstream was something else altogether.

  All wolves knew the plant intimately. Its purple blossoms flowered late in the season and were made into tinctures and powders to torture wolves.

  Effective tinctures.

  He was already slowing down. The Wolfcatcher would be on him in moments. He stumbled, his arm full of fire and vinegar and rust. Sweat dampened his hair immediately. The pain licked down his arm to his hand, which curled into a paw. Fur spiked with more sweat. His nails turned to black claws. He choked on the taste of salt and wolfsbane flowers.

  He was too slow. Too tired from fighting shadow people and Gretchen.

  An iron chain dosed in wolfsbane water lashed him across the cheek, coiling around his neck. The Wolfcatcher yanked savagely, sending him sprawling on the pavement. His cheek was already split from the chain. The poison was making him clumsy and light-headed. The chain tightened again, and he scratched at it desperately, twisting this way and that. Coins and iron nails tumbled out of his pocket.

  He paused, blinking rapidly to make his eyes focus properly. He fumbled more coins out of his pockets and the gold cufflinks out of his shirt. They seemed impossibly bright. His cravat pin decorated with sapphires was easy, even with the thick frozen fingers of his still-human hand. “Alms!” he cried out, tossing them into the air.

  The gaslight flames caught the unmistakable glitter of gold and jewels. People converged, children squealing and adults grim with silence, hoping to keep the others from noticing. The ones too suspicious to fall for his ploy at least didn’t get in his way.

  It wouldn’t buy him much time but it would have to be enough. The wolfsbane sent darts of acid into his chest, robbing him of breath. He shoved the chain off.

  He wouldn’t die. Not like this. His family needed him. Without the protection of a viscount and a Keeper, they would be vulnerable. His mother might rule the Lawless Pack, but society rules were vastly different.

  The Wolfcatcher would not have him.

  Neither would his wolfsbane.

  He tripped along, stumbling to a stop across the street from the grim façade of a workhouse. They were set up to discourage people from lingering, and they succeeded with dismal success. Folk naturally avoided any contact with such a place, knowing them to be mirthless boxes where the poor were forced to toil with little hope of improvement.

  This workhouse was different, and not just because it was cloaked from any eye that couldn’t see as a beast. Even witches would walk right past it. The only clue to the presence of the Hoof and Horn burrow were claw marks scratched into a brick at the corner. Tobias fell, more than walked, inside. The oak door was so heavy it may as well have been still a tree, rooted to the earth.

  He managed to make it to the bar where he half collapsed. The door thumped shut behind him, and the resulting draft sent the candle flames dancing. They left trails of purple light and Tobias watched them, knowing the wolfsbane was well and truly in his system now.

  “Please,” he croaked to the woman behind the bar. She had a braid wound around her head and the kind of no-nonsense stare that was comforting. Comforting or not, he didn’t have any money left. He’d tossed it all onto the street. “Lawless …”

  “Oh, I know who you are, love,” she said. “Jonquil!” she called over her shoulder.

  A woman emerged from behind an elaborately carved wooden screen in the corner next to the bar. She wore a thick linen-and-leather apron over a dark brown dress. Dozens of amulets and charms hung around her neck, and pouches clung to the wide leather belt around her waist. The brooch of a dagger crossed with a needle proclaimed her to be a magical healer. The wolf tooth dipped in silver and wrapped in a ring of rabbit teeth meant she specialized in shifter healing. She frowned at him, nose twitching. “Wolfsbane poisoning,” she said with a sigh. “Your pupils are as big as ponds.”

  “Beg your pardon.” He wasn’t sure why he was apologizing.

  “Drink up, Greybeard.”

  Three tincture bottles floated in front of him, and after watching him pluck at the air, the healer slapped the bottle into his palm. She guided it to his lips. The first sip was gritty with salt. The rest tasted exactly as awful as it sounded: a concoction made from salt, peppermint, cloves, and mallow leaves steeped in the water of a Welsh healing well.

  “Thank you,” he said to Jonquil. “I am much obliged.”

  She snorted, pushing him back down when he tried to stand up. “You’re far from healed, my lord.”

  When his pupils finally retracted enough that his vision stopped blurring, he was able to get a better look at his surroundings. What had been fuzzy outlines and too-bright lights became a collection of wary shifters and firelight.

  Burrows clung to a wary peace at best, fostered by a mutual enemy more than any mutual affinity. In any other place, rabbit, wolf, cat, and the other various shifters could not have shared drink together. The smell was smoke and musk and fur, with a heavy overlay of rosewater to cover the more animal traces. Magical sigils had been painted on the walls with a paste of red ochre, soot, and herbs. Rowan berries strung on white thread wound through the iron chandeliers and hung like Yule garlands on the windowsills. The floor was scattered with salt, apple seeds, and lavender.

  Above the main fireplace hung a shield made from the teeth of every kind of shifter—from wolf, boar, rabbit, and fox, all the way to mice and voles. Wolfcatchers and other magical hunters took the teeth for their magical properties, but these had been freely donated and their power manifestly tripled.

  Three men swaggered in his direction. One wore a necklace of human teeth in a grisly imitation of the wolf-teeth trophies Wolfcatchers wore. These were hardened hunters, the kind Ky and his friends admired.

  “Who poisoned you, friend?” he asked.

  “I didn’t catch his name,” Tobias replied, his voice raspy from where the chain had pressed against his throat.

  He snorted. “I don’t need his name to kill him, mate.”

  Tobias tried to stand again, even as Jonquil clucked at him. “He’s long gone,” he said. “Leave it.”

  They laughed, practically barking. Two rabbit-shifters in the corner buried their heads nervously in their hoods. Tobias pushed back with weary determination at his own wolf, scenting a challenge. Jonquil slipped her arm around his throbbing shoulder to steady him. “Easy,” she murmured.

  He breathed through his nose, concentrating on the sting of salt, the residue of so much shield magic in the burrow. “You’re in no condition to stop them,” she continued as the men thundered out of the burrow. “Even if they weren’t Carnyx.”

  “If they track him, they’ll kill him,” he protested. He was still feeling fuzzy from the poison, but he felt like that was something he should care about.

  “Probably.” Jonquil didn’t sound nearly as perturbed.

  “He’s human.”

  “And so not my concern,” she returned with a pragmatic shrug. “I don’t know anything about human medicine.” She placed a pillow under him as he began to topple. “But I do know if you go out there right now, you’ll get yourself killed and waste a perfectly good wolfsbane remedy.”

  Tobias wanted to protest but the healing potion had been laced with belladonna and valerian. He fell asleep, slouching in a most undignified manner.

  Chapter 12

  When Gretchen arrived at the academy, she found Emma at a small table in the dining room with Catriona, the Scottish girl everyone else was too afraid to befriend. Her habit of foretelling a person’s death was alarming. As long as Catriona didn’t eat all of the strawberry tarts, Gretchen didn’t care.

  She slid into a chair, commandeered two tarts and a roll, and poured hot, strong tea into a cup. Her eyes were gritty and sore from lack of sleep. Still, she was tired,
not blind. The others had all stopped to stare at her, teacups and forkfuls of coddled eggs suspended halfway to their mouths. Gretchen slathered butter on her roll. “I gather word is out, then?”

  Emma made a face. “Did you doubt it? Lynn crossed herself when I walked by, and she’s not even Catholic.”

  “Did you save any of the graveyard dirt?” Catriona asked.

  Gretchen blinked at the non sequitur. “Um, no. Should I have?”

  “Pity. It’s quite powerful.” Her expression was rather disconcertingly hard for a girl who tended to float about half smiling at nothing at all. When she didn’t elaborate, Gretchen went back to eating her breakfast.

  “Daphne’s father was here earlier to speak to Mrs. Sparrow,” Emma told her. “And three of the girls’ parents have already pulled them out of school to take them to the country.”

  “Is it any safer there?” Gretchen wondered.

  “There are more people to kill in London,” Catriona put in calmly. “And witches are easier to find here.”

  “Splendid,” Gretchen said. “You are cheerful, aren’t you?” She smiled to take the sting out of her words. Catriona didn’t giggle or gossip so Gretchen was inclined to like her, despite her morbid pronouncements.

  There was a hitch in the general dining room chatter before it exploded again.

  “Now what?” Gretchen said. “Honestly, it’s like being in a room full of mad little sparrows.”

  Daphne paused in the doorway. She wore her usual day dress, trimmed with ribbons and flounces, and her hair looked as much like spun sugar as ever. The set of her mouth, though, was more about swords and sabers than sweets. The other students went silent again, save for one of the girls, who burst into hysterical sobs.

  Daphne straightened her shoulders and sailed into the room, like a ship going out to war. The girl wept harder, hiccuping, “Poor Lilybeth,” until Gretchen wanted to throw the rest of her bread roll at her. Daphne swallowed hard, searching the expectant faces staring at her. She finally slid into the empty chair beside Gretchen as the others began to whisper behind their hands again, eyes round.

  “Daphne?” Gretchen asked gently, equally surprised.

  “Yes.”

  “You don’t like us, remember?”

  Daphne sniffed. “At least you don’t fuss about like I’m a china doll.” Her eyes were red, but she held her chin high. Emma poured a cup of tea and slid it toward her.

  “Fair enough,” Gretchen added. “But if you eat the last strawberry tart, I will stab you with my fork. I don’t care how sad you are.”

  A smile trembled on the edge of Daphne’s mouth.

  “And don’t worry,” Catriona added. “You don’t die from pity.”

  As Mrs. Sparrow had elected to cancel classes for the day to better accommodate the parade of distressed parents, Gretchen took her grimoire and left for the apothecary to purchase supplies for more protective amulets. She wore her arrowhead, but she’d taken off the hagstone to give to Penelope and the rowan berry for Emma.

  She walked out into a morning that had grown bright and warm, utterly at odds with the fear lurking in every cranny and corner. She saw it in the gargoyles snarling at every passing shadow, in ropes of silver bells hung from iron gates, and in rowan branches tied to door knockers with red ribbon.

  She hadn’t bothered with a lady’s maid or a footman; what was the point, when Tobias was surely stalking her even now? And she found it rather liberating to walk alone, despite the state of affairs in magical London. She couldn’t imagine Sophie would risk being in such a busy thoroughfare, not now that every Keeper in the Order was hunting for her. She’d given herself away by stealing Lilybeth’s bones. The Order wasn’t able to keep her escape a secret, not while still pacifying witching society. And with the sunlight slanting through the columns and the freshly washed shop windows, it was easy to imagine it entirely impossible for someone to steal the bones of dead girls in the first place.

  The shop was bustling with customers, crowding elbow to elbow against the counter. Two clerks rushed back and forth, weighing herbs and measuring out tonics. The shelves of the apothecary were crowded with glass bottles of tonics, flower waters, dried rosebuds, and one cat. She inhaled the comforting scents of lavender, mint, and something more medicinal.

  She turned sideways as a clerk approached her, her hair half falling out of her chignon. “We are entirely out of salt and rowan berries,” she said before Gretchen could speak.

  “Quickly, I want to get home,” a shopper interrupted, eyes darting from side to side. He and nearly everyone else inside the shop was thinking about protective spells, some more successful than others. Gretchen heard it in the escalating whispering.

  “This young lady was before you, sir,” the clerk said apologetically. Gretchen handed her list over. The clerk scanned the parchment quickly. “I can help you with everything but the Saint-John’s-wort. It can be gathered only on Midsummer’s eve, if you’re using it for spellwork.” She lifted the lid off an enormous glass jar filled with dried leaves and used a decorative wooden spoon to scoop some into a cloth bag. “Metal spoons have iron in them sometimes,” she explained at Gretchen’s examination of the spoon. It was covered in tiny carved lotus flowers. “Or silver. Both of which can interfere with a plant’s magical properties.”

  The clerk’s steady voice soothed the whispering in Gretchen’s brain. She took a deep breath. Hush, she thought at them. These aren’t my spells and you’re driving me mad. Surprisingly, the volume dimmed.

  “You there.” A woman in a fringed velvet pelisse snapped her fingers imperiously. Gretchen recognized her as a countess but couldn’t remember her name. Her mother had memorized all of Debrett’s and knew every peer in England. She’d made Gretchen recite them before dinner every night the summer she was twelve. She’d promptly forgotten them all as soon as possible.

  “I am sure you meant to say please,” Gretchen remarked loudly. “Being a lady of such elegant refinement.”

  The countess sucked in a breath, her nostrils constricting so that they looked pinched. “I beg your pardon.”

  “Is that Gretchen Thorn?” someone whispered loudly. “She found one of the empty graves!”

  The resulting chatter made Gretchen sigh. She leaned on the counter, resting her chin on her hand. “Wonderful, it’s just like being back at the academy.”

  “I am sure I am more deserving of your attention than a Lovegrove,” the countess insisted haughtily. “I require a full jar of rowan berries and several herbs your assistant says you have run out of. That is simply unacceptable.”

  “I am sure we can find something just as effective,” the clerk assured her. “If you’ll wait just one moment, your ladyship.” She was brisk and efficient and slid several paper-wrapped packages across the counter. Gretchen handed her a coin. “Shall we have these delivered, my lady?”

  Gretchen tilted her head. “Actually, if you could give them over to the gentleman with the very disapproving blue eyes waiting just outside, he’ll carry them for me.” If Tobias was going to continue to follow her about instead of walking at her side, especially after what they’d just been through, she intended to put him to good use.

  The countess launched into an immediate and condescending lecture when the clerk didn’t offer help quite to her satisfaction. “I’m sure my grimoire said hyssop. And it’s been in my family since Hastings fell, young lady. I certainly trust it more than some shopgirl.”

  “Your grimoire’s wrong,” Gretchen said, pinching the bridge of her nose, trying to alleviate the sudden chorus of a dozen hysterical witches in her head. “Hyssop won’t work,” she told the countess. “You should listen to her.”

  She let the door shut firmly behind her, glad to be back outside. She hurried across the bridge, avoiding the curious glances and outright pointing of those who recognized her as the girl who’d fallen in an open grave. The regular streets of London were equally crowded with shoppers and vendors selling everything from
buttered muffins and baked potatoes to posies of spring violets. She couldn’t see Tobias over the sea of crowned hats, nor Sophie nor anything untoward.

  In truth, she was a little disappointed. Not over Sophie, of course, but because she had a hundred questions for Tobias. How did one go about changing into a wolf? Did it hurt? Did he retain knowledge of himself? Was it delicious to run as fast as four legs could carry you?

  She glanced in the shop windows as she passed, noting a huge umbrella stand in the shape of an elephant. If she purchased something unwieldy and heavy and sent it out for him to carry, would it needle him into talking to her?

  On second thought, why wait?

  Determined, she turned sharply, hoping to catch him off guard. She managed to knock into a footman with a stack of parcels and an old woman who poked her savagely with the tip of her umbrella. She couldn’t see Tobias anywhere. He must have already stepped back into the shadows. “Well, we’ll just see about that, won’t we?” she muttered to herself.

  She marched back down the street, peering into all of the alleys and each shop, even the tobacconist who was not pleased to see a woman in his doorway.

  Still no Tobias, and no other Keeper.

  Feeling suddenly concerned, she quickened her step. She knew enough about Tobias to know that if there was no one else following her, he was on duty. And if he was on duty and not to be found, then something was terribly wrong.

  The carriage sitting quietly by the side of the curb shouldn’t have caught her attention.

  Except that Tobias leaned against the window, eyes squinting at the single ray of sunlight that found its way between the edges of the curtains he twitched shut. She flung open the door and clambered into the carriage before the driver could stop her. “Tobias Lawless, you scared me half to death, you—” She broke off, outraged. There was stubble on his jaw and his cravat was half falling out of his pocket. His throat was exposed, as was the smooth skin under his collarbones. “Are you drunk?”